Save my peaches from borers, peach leaf curl, Oriental Fruit moths and who knows what else!

Hi, everyone:

I have a belated thank you and update to offer to those who gave advice on my peaches last year. It was so helpful. In the hope to keep learning, I also attached photos of some of last year’s peaches. If anyone has feedback on what caused the damage that would be interesting to me as I go forward (honestly, I was thrilled just to have peaches, even some with damage!)

I used the Daconil in the dormant season last year and had almost no peach leach curl. I also sprayed Sevin on the trunks and as part of a semi-regular spray program after the fruit appeared. I just inspected the borer damage and it looks like the trees have healed up, but I’m not certain yet. One of the trees had a few limbs die that I pruned out, perhaps from previous borer damage. I did go ahead with a spray program of Sevin, Captan and vinegar, although not as regular as recommended since I had to be out of town unexpectedly during some key times – including right when the fruits were forming. I hope to be more regular this year. I’d still like to experiment with more organic options, but first want to be able to keep the trees consistently healthy with an easier synthetic schedule.

Though many of our buds were frozen in the frost last Mother’s Day weekend, I still harvested my first handful of peaches on my Red Haven peach tree (there were very few blossoms on the Coral Star after I pruned heavily and those froze). Below are some photos from July 31, 2020. Some of my ~ 8 fruit were perfect or close to perfect and some others had some damage, but were still edible and delicious.

Anyway, thanks again for all of your help. I meant to respond sooner (and get back about possibly sharing Captan), but with everything else going on last year that never happened. Still, I feel much more comfortable going forward and so far have done a dormant spray this year and also sprayed the trunks with Sevin. I only sprayed my pears with oil this year, saving time, based on Olpea’s advice. I’m planning to spray my peaches again at shuck-split. I appreciate this forum, hope your fruit trees are all doing well, and wish us all ideal growing conditions this year!

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I’ve seen damage like that to some of my fruit.Probably Stinkbug,Earwigs or sometimes bird pecks.
What can be used is a physical covering like nylon footies,organza bags or paper ones found online.The first time using only the footies,my fruit were almost pristine,but sometimes pests can get through defenses.
Here’s an address,for a bag that works well.It’s effective,because birds can’t see through.
https://www.clemson.edu/extension/peach/commercial/diseases/clemsonfruitbags.html

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Thanks for taking your time to reply. I just ordered 100 Clemson bags to try this year.

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@Olpea Mark, I was searching peach borer and sevin, and find this 2 year old post of yours. I see that you recommended using the “new” Sevin for PC in addition to peach borer. I have been using triazicide for PC from shuck split on with various degree of success and too lazy to participate pooling with others here to buy more potent pesticides. I know you don’t use triazicide, but do you think the new Sevin is more potent than triazicide?

Also, I have been thinking of adding vinegar to the spray in addition to the spreader. it shouldn’t be any problem to use both, right?
(I have captan for brown rot and triazicide for pest in my spray, and spreader)

I am having a pretty serious borer problem, but I will make a separate post about that.

I prefer the Sevin (a.i. zeta cypermethrin) because it tends to be a somewhat more efficacious against some pests vs the active ingredient in Triazicide (gamma cyhalothrin). Both of these active ingredients are in commercial products (Mustang Maxx and Proaxis, respectively). The newer Sevin wasn’t released until the last few years, so it’s fairly new to home orchardists.

I’ve not used Proaxis (i.e. Triazicide), but am familiar enough with it to know that it’s generally recognized as not quite as effective against some pests as Mustang (i.e. Sevin).

Correct. You will want to acidify the water before the captan is added. I saw a water report from our water district for the orchard the other day. They listed the water pH at 9.8! Crazy high.

At that high pH in our water Captan would break down almost immediately.

@Olpea Thank you so much for your reply! You are a wealth of information and always very helpful! I will switch to sevin from now on and add vinegar to the spray to make it more acidic.

I think I tested my drinking water’s PH before, it’s pretty neutral.

Water with PH 9.8 just sounds so high! Is it the municipal water that people actually drink?

Yes, it’s ridiculously high. It’s rural potable water. The county water at our house (different water district) is 9.4 pH. I looked up the pH for Philly and it’s 7.4 pH, which isn’t too bad.

Pyrethroids like Sevin (zeta cypermethrin) and Triazicide are fairly stable at a wide range of pH. It’s the captan which breaks down rapidly at alkaline pH.

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I have an uncle who’s had pretty good success with peach trees for 50+ years. He said an older gentleman told him when he was first starting out how he kept borers away. He keeps an inch or two of wood ash around the base of the tree, in a ring perhaps a foot or so in radius out from the tree. He did stress to me that it must be replaced/refreshed at least yearly. I figured what the heck, I have an abundance of ash, I’ve been doing the same thing on my trees since 2017 or so.

Maybe it’s what’s working, maybe no borers here (doubtful), maybe the light coating of Neem is actually what’s working. Scott’s method of painting that on straight would seem to indicate a fairly dilute spray wouldn’t be effective though. I’ll keep ash around them until I see evidence it’s not working… So far though, a couple of (the oldest) trees at probably 3"+ diameter at ground level, are clean. Fingers crossed…

Smaller tree I put some around for the first time this year:

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Years ago, I had tried to paint the tree truck with white latex paint and put mothball around the tree. It didn’t work. I ended up spraying some pesticides.

If I have enough wood ash I would try it. Is ash from burning paper similar to wood ash?

Paper is made from wood pulp so I’d think it probably would be. Not sure how much you’d have to burn, I put a gallon or more around each tree. We burn a lot of wood in the winter so have an abundance of ash. Just because I assume it won’t hurt anything, and just might help… I put it around Apple, Pear, Cherry and other trees too. I had wooly apple aphids in the roots of a tree a few years ago and if a layer of ash can also prevent that, great… I don’t know that it will but again, I’ve got plenty and need somewhere to put it anyway. Good luck.

I just have a fireplace that occasionally burn firewood and old paper. Probably not enough ash. May have to rely on chemical spray.

A similar conversation just took place on an FB group… Someone from Shale Creek Nursery (don’t know if they’re a member here or not) had this to say:

Lime & salt. It helps better than the best insecticide (and I have a applicators permit for the “good stuff”).

The salt dehydrated, the lime is VERY alkaline. It doesn’t hurt the trees one bit even with years of repeated use. I can explain why if someone is interested.

They went on to say that they stopped using lime/salt for a few years, switched to insecticides, and had lots of problems with borers. Switched back to lime/salt and no problems since.

I chimed in on the conversation mentioning the use of wood ash. I had previously wondered if the alkalinity of the ash was what kept the borers away.

They added later:

Color might have something to do with it as well as a cleared area of grass/debris. I was researching this a bit myself. Borers may not like the light color but they also appreciate a layer of leaves or debris. I try to tell people NOT to use mulch around peach type trees.

Anyway, hopefully this is helpful to many of you.

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A previous FB post where they provided some detail:

https://www.facebook.com/shalecreek.nursery/posts/pfbid0CYeq7DjFiKpgejRvVZcLqWq3wf8arU5WvqR5fXo683U6RqZdP4RT8mrvToNjuw3nl

With an interesting comment that they “discovered” this method from a high school primer from the 1800’s…

Post text:

Lime, Borers, painting trees.

Here’s a short course. Lime + salt makes a very inhospitable landscape for borers. It can also repel ants. Lime drives the pH up and salt is a dehydrating agent. This combination is NOT enjoyed by any insect.

Borers tend to attack trees that have genetics of Peach/Apricot/Nectarine which also include pluot, aprium, plumcot.

Now is the time to paint your trees (here in East Tennessee we see cicada killers fly) and here is the formula:

2 lbs salt (any kind. Get the cheapest)

3 scoops of hydrated lime powder

Enough water to make a good mixture that is similar to thin pancake batter. (Makes about 2.5 gallons)

Paint the trees 3-4 feet up from the ground and do this yearly. A thick wide brush makes the job easier.

We’ve tested this and it turns out that this method is better than traditional pesticides (and we’re not organic)

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Interesting idea. I hope it is not too much salt though, I have areas of no grass from road salt left there years ago.

I put wood ash on my trees but just to get rid of it and as a little fertilizer. Next time I will try to get the peaches covered a bit better than the other trees!

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When do the borers come out?

For me it is late May or early June. Look for the pupa husks on the ground by the tree bases. My understanding is they come out earlier in the north and later in the south but this is just based on what I have read.

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Thank you Scott! Hey, I just went out to look at my peach trees. I still have a few growing in nylon bags. It is a multi grafted fruit salad, not sure what kind of peach. Do you think the bags keep the borers away?

@Colleen7
I got borers at the bases of my peach trees as early as end of April/early May.

Borer moths lay egg at the base of a tree and slightly below a soil line. That’s where borers emerge and do their damage.

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I realize this is a social media meme, but nevertheless… Perhaps there is some validity to it?

I usually refresh the wood ash around my peach trees in the spring… Things happened this year and I only got around to it today. Luckily it didn’t appear that any borers had bothered any of the trees.

Before:

Clean out the old:

Put on the new:

As far as quantity, I emptied 2 5gal buckets worth around 6 trees. Probably heavier than necessary but I needed to get rid of it anyway…

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